Marlene Jennings

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

That is sheer hypocrisy. Worse yet, not only did they vote against establishing the minimum age of 18 to make legal financial contributions to political parties, but the NDP member for Winnipeg South had the gall to table an amendment which would have allowed newborn babies to make donations to political parties.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise this evening regarding Bill C-2, at third reading.

I had the honour, if I can put it that way, to sit on the legislative committee responsible for Bill C-2, to which the bill was referred at second reading. That was a revelation.

It was something to see the way that the government, with the complicity of the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre, ensured that the witnesses appearing before the committee did not have the time to fully present their points of view. They were unable to do their preparatory work properly before coming before the committee.

After their presentations, certain witnesses asked to come back a second time, considering that they had not been given enough time to do justice to their viewpoints or to the recommendations they wanted to make to the committee.

The government members and the NDP member refused to give these witnesses the option to return.

I will go no further with this. I think that those Canadians who followed the committee’s proceedings—which were, after all, publicized and in the media—were able to see the behaviour of the hon. members, particularly that of the government’s parliamentary secretaries.

I will be raising five points in my speech. I want to talk about the Parliament of Canada Act, the changes that the government has tried to make to it, and the reasons that drove the hon. members of the opposition to stop the government’s action to amend the Parliament of Canada Act.

I also want to talk about the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal.

I want to talk about the Public Appointments Commission.

I also want to talk about two other subjects that were raised by certain hon. members in both the NDP and the Conservative Party.

I would like to talk about the questions of floor crossing and of the minimum age to contribute financially to a political party. I will start with the question of floor crossing.

I find it amazing that a member of the NDP took to task members of the Liberal Party and the Bloc for certain decisions taken in committee. What was interesting was that same member was also denouncing Liberal members and government members, who sit on the Standing Committee on the Environment, for upholding a ruling of the chair regarding an NDP motion. The member said it was anti-democratic, it was disgusting, it was this, it was that. I will not even use all of the words.

At the same time, in the legislative committee on Bill C-2, my colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra, who is also the Liberal critic for democratic reform, had tabled an amendment to Bill C-2 which would have dealt with the issue of floor-crossing. It would have allowed a process for constituents, who had voted for a member who then crossed the floor to another party, to do what we in popular terms call a recall. The chair of the committee ruled the amendment out of order. The NDP member for Winnipeg Centre and the government members voted to uphold the chair's ruling. The Liberal members did not say that was undemocratic. We did not denounce the member for Winnipeg Centre for voting to uphold the ruling of the chair.

However, one of his colleagues turned around and denounced Liberal members for upholding a chair's ruling that an NDP motion in another committee was out of order and said it was undemocratic. I think that speaks to the level of hypocrisy we see at times from at least two parties in the House, the Conservatives and the NDP.

On the question of minimum age for donation. For the last several weeks we have heard non-stop members of the Conservative government, members of the NDP and especially the member for Winnipeg Centre rise in indignation that a Liberal leadership candidate legally accepted donations from children under the age of 18. They said it was inappropriate and reprehensible. It was like stealing from kids' lunch boxes or doing political financing in day cares.

Yet on the legislative committee, when a Liberal amendment would have set the minimum age to make legal contributions to political parties at 18, guess who voted against it? The NDP member for Winnipeg Centre and the five Conservative members of Parliament who sat on that committee.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

They continue to allow it.

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Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting to listen to my colleague who, like me, sat on the legislative committee responsible for Bill C-2.

I have two comments and one question for him. He said that the Liberal members and the two Bloc members on the committee voted against the NDP amendment to establish a minimum age for making legal monetary donations to political parties. The NDP amendment stipulated that the legal limit of $1,000 for a donation made by a child would apply to any child, even a newborn, up to the age of 14. However, Elections Canada would consider the donation to have been made by the parent, which would then limit the amount a parent could donate. After the child turned 14, the donation would be considered to have been made by the child. The amendment would have changed nothing. It would still have allowed children to make donations legally.

A Liberal amendment, however—mine in fact—would have set the minimum age for making donations at 18. I was disappointed that my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and government members voted against this amendment.

I would like to discuss another issue. I am very interested in what the member for Winnipeg Centre has to say about this. He proposed an amendment—which the Liberals supported—to assign criteria, a mandate and powers to the Public Appointments Commission. The Liberals thought this an excellent amendment. The government's Bill C-2 included neither mandate nor powers. It simply said that the governor in council could direct the Public Appointments Commission to appoint a commissioner.

The committee—Liberal, Conservative, Bloc and NDP members alike—supported this motion. What does the member for Winnipeg Centre think of the Prime Minister's statement that despite the adoption of this motion, he will not appoint anyone to this position?

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Vancouver Quadra and I congratulate him on his able performance at the special legislative committee on Bill C-2. He led a team of four Liberal members of Parliament and gave us some wise counsel and leadership, and I would like to thank him for that. However, I do have a couple of questions.

He was asked by our colleague from Mississauga South about the pace at which the committee dealt with Bill C-2. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons made the point that people had said that the bill could not get through the House before the summer recess. It has been done and this is a great achievement.

I do not wish to speak to whether or not Bill C-2 is a good bill in its actual state. What I do wish to ask the member is did the committee allow a fulsome presentation on the part of the witnesses who are experts who came before the committee?

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Explain why you voted against the amendment.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to listen to my hon. colleague from Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

I would like to ask him two questions. The first question concerns the fact that the Conservatives and the NDP voted against an amendment to establish the minimum age required to legally contribute to a political party. This amendment was proposed by the Liberals, with the support of members from the Bloc Québécois.

In Quebec, at the provincial level, for nearly 30 years, the Election Act has set out that a person must have reached the age of majority, 18 years, in order to make a financial contribution to a political party.

I proposed an amendment myself. Nevertheless, the Conservatives and the NDP raised quite a fuss about a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada who had accepted legal donations from youth under 18 years of age. The Conservatives said it was unacceptable and that it never should have happened, even though it was legal. The candidate returned the donations. I myself tabled an amendment to establish the minimum age as 18, and the Conservatives voted against that amendment.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague how he can reconcile his party's position when they say it is unacceptable and inappropriate to accept legal donations from young people under 18 and that the candidate should not have accepted the donations, with that same party's position when it voted against the amendment that would have established the minimum age to make a donation to a federal political party as 18 years.

Will he explain to Canadians and Quebeckers how he can reconcile those two positions? Or is this simply partisan politics?

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the member for Winnipeg Centre did not think that when I referred to his service to the Conservatives as that of a busboy that I meant it as an insult. We had a conversation outside of the House and I made it very clear that I have a high regard for busboys. Second, he made an attempt to create a difference in stating that he was just a carpenter and I was a high powered lawyer.

First, I am not a high powered lawyer. Second, I come from a working class background. My father was a porter on the train. Third, I myself was working class in my professional life. When I did my law degree, I worked full time as a coder. I was unionized with CUPW at Canada Post and worked full time as I studied full time. I would not in any way wish to cast aspersions on his socio-economic background prior to coming into politics because I shared a lot of it and I am quite proud of that.

To come to the achievements of the committee regarding the question of the public appointments commission, as the member for Winnipeg Centre stated, one area where the three opposition parties came together, were like-minded, were in agreement, and as a result were able to amend Bill C-2 to bring it back and put it in a form that, if it gets all the way through Parliament, will create an independent system that is merit-based.

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The President of the Treasury Board is too kind and too flattering, but I am sure that as he gets to know me better he will understand that I always have thoughts and they are usually quite well founded on a variety of issues.

In this case, I simply wish to share as many of my thoughts as I can as they pertain to Bill C-2 at report stage because, after all, that is what we are here to discuss this evening.

I would like to come back to the issue of the parliamentary constitutional autonomy of the House and its members. For those members, both on the committee who actually voted on the amendments that the Liberals had brought forth, and those members who did not have the privilege of sitting on the special legislative committee that dealt with Bill C-2 and who do not understand what is so important about that, I would strongly encourage them to call our parliamentary counsel and law clerk, Rob Walsh, and his able staff. They could probably quite easily, off the tops of their heads, give an entire course on the issue and why it was so important to protect. If there is one thing that we have done right with Bill C-2, that is definitely one.

We also did a couple of other things right, contrary to the Prime Minister's pique when his nomination of Mr. Gwyn Morgan to what was going to become the public appointments commission was not approved by the committee. In his childish pique, which is unfortunate to mention, but it really was, the Prime Minister said that in that case he would not be nominating anyone else.

Luckily, the committee, in its wisdom, thought that it was important to actually ensure that the public appointments commission existed, that there was a process for appointment, and that the actual mandate and authority of that public appointments commission was clarified through the statutes. Therefore, amendments, some of which came from the Liberals and others from the other parties in opposition, the NDP, actually went forth.

I hope that we will be successful in having those amendments remain in Bill C-2. When Bill C-2 ultimately goes to the Senate, is carried at third reading, receives royal assent and comes into force, the Prime Minister at that time, whomsoever he or she may be, as I do not take that as a foregone conclusion, in his or her wisdom, will make appointments to the public appointments commission and will ensure that there is that kind of independent oversight when it comes to political appointments.

It was not always pleasant working on the committee. Contrary to what some in the House have said, there were many witnesses who stated that they were not pleased with the limited time they were provided to prepare for their appearance and the amount of time they were provided for their actual appearance. They indeed expressed to the committee verbally and in some cases in writing a desire to come back to appear a second time. Unfortunately, that was not the will of the majority of the committee, although it was the will of the Liberal members.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

I have five minutes. It will be quite difficult for me to cram all of my--